District of Columbia: Grosso Re-Introduces Bill To Allow Local Voting Privileges For Legal Non-Citizens | DCist

The D.C. Council will once again try to pass a bill allowing green card holders the right to vote in local elections. Councilmember David Grosso (I-At Large) introduced a bill yesterday that would grant permanent resident immigrants municipal voting privileges. Councilmembers Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), and Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) joined him in co-introducing the bill. "What most District residents care about are the tangible things that affect their day-to-day lives, like potholes, playgrounds, taxes, snow removal, trash collection, red light cameras and more," Grosso said in a statement. "Unfortunately, not all of our residents have a say in choosing the officials who make these decisions. In my opinion, that is unjust."

District of Columbia: D.C. appeals to Republicans for expanded voting rights | WTOP

The corridors of Capitol Hill are lined with paintbrushes, ladders and hammers as the 114th Congress moves in to its new digs. Before the dust settles and while good will runs high, D.C. leaders will appeal to the new faces in the Republican majority for greater voting rights. On Tuesday, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton plans to take to the House floor in an effort to win back the District’s vote in the Committee of the Whole, which she had during three Congresses. “I will make the point that in a democracy, the vote can never be tied to the party in power,” she says. “The vote is tied to the people.”

District of Columbia: Election Ends In Tie, Setting Up High-Noon Casting Of Lots | WAMU

The voters couldn't decide the race, so now it will be left up to chance. After a recount of all ballots today, the race for an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner race in Columbia Heights has ended in a rare tie, sending the two candidates to a casting of lots that by law has to occur at noon of a day designated by the D.C. Board of Elections. The race between incumbent Dyana Forester and challenger David Gilliland for the 1B06 seat was separated by a single vote after the Nov. 4 election results were certified last week, triggering a recount of the 582 ballots cast. But after that recount, which took place today, the two emerged tied, 204 to 204. (The remaining votes were for write-in candidates, and over- and under-votes.) One board official said it could be the first-ever tie for an ANC race in the city's history, though that could not be immediately confirmed.

District of Columbia: September To April And Back? The Saga Of D.C.’s Primary Date Continues | WAMU

D.C. could soon return to a September primary date for local elections, abandoning a brief and controversial experiment with holding the primaries in April. Under a bill set to be considered by the D.C. Council on Tuesday, the city's primary election would be moved to the first Tuesday in September, effectively reversing a 2011 bill that pushed the primary date to the first Tuesday in April. That bill was passed to put D.C. in compliance with a federal law requiring 45 days between a primary and general election, to better allow military and overseas voters that chance to cast absentee ballots. It also aligned the city's presidential and local primaries, which prior to 2012 had been held on different dates. But legislators, candidates and voters seemed to have had a hard time adjusting to the new electoral calendar, which required candidates to campaign in wintry weather and left incumbents who failed to win re-election a nine-month-long lame duck period. It also seemed to depress turnout; the April 1 D.C. primary saw less than 27 percent of registered voters actually cast ballots, a historic low for the city's mayoral primaries. "Given the District's unique position of having no voting members of the House of Representatives or Senate, District-wide elections have a deep impact on the lives of D.C. residents. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to maintain an electoral process that meets the needs and desires of the District's residents while maintaining accessibility for military and overseas voters," said a report from the Council's Committee on Government Operations, which last week approved the measure.

District of Columbia: Election Over, Workers Keep Counting Ballots — Thousands Of Them | WAMU

"It's exhausting." That's how Clifford Tatum, the executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections, describes the work that has taken place after the Nov. 4 general election. Though the campaign signs are coming down, public attention has shifted away and most of the top-ticket races — mayor, attorney general, D.C. Council seats, the marijuana legalization initiative — were settled after votes were tallied on election night, work has since continued for Tatum and his staff. That's because as with every election, the elections board is charged with counting every ballot that's properly cast. The bulk of those come during early voting or on Election Day — 25,750 residents voted early, while 125,606 voted on Nov. 4. But for those residents living outside the city, or those who fall into a number of categories that may require that they vote using a special — or provisional — ballot, their votes are counted in the two weeks following the election. For the general election, that adds up to a lot of ballots — close to 6,000 absentee ballots and over 20,000 special ballots.

District of Columbia: Special Election to Operate Under New Finance Laws | Associated Press

The coming special election to fill the D.C. Council seat of Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser will be the first to test restrictive new campaign finance laws passed by D.C. officials last year. The D.C. Council adopted regulations that take effect Feb. 1 and include new disclosure requirements and limitations on donations from affiliated businesses as a means to increase transparency and accountability in campaign finance. The most lauded change in the law closes the District’s so-called “LLC loophole” by restricting campaign donations from affiliated companies, including limited liability corporations. Business owners traditionally could skirt the city’s maximum campaign contribution limits by donating multiple times to a candidate through different LLCs, which were not recognized as being affiliated even when they were owned or operated by the same people.

District of Columbia: Election officials say they’ve addressed delays | The Washington Post

Elections officials in the nation’s capital say they’ve addressed computer glitches that led to major delays in counting votes during the April 1 primary, but critics say the process of identifying and fixing the problem was slow and insufficiently transparent. The vote totals will be closely watched in November, with the District of Columbia on track for its most competitive general election for mayor in 20 years. In April, it took nearly four hours after polls closed for results sufficient to call the winner to be made available. D.C. Councilmember Muriel Bowser defeated scandal-plagued Mayor Vincent Gray in the Democratic primary, making her the favorite to win the general election in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. According to the D.C. Board of Elections, a widespread network connectivity error led to the delays in counting votes. It’s since been repaired, the board said last month. That was different from the explanation the elections board offered on the chaotic primary night, when it blamed a handful of malfunctioning electronic machines.

District of Columbia: Elections Board Says All Voting Machines Need To Be Replaced | WAMU

The D.C. Board of Elections says that the city's voting machines are outdated and in need of replacement, an admission that comes only weeks before what could be a close mayoral election. In a report on the Apr. 1 primary published last week, the board said that a majority of the city's touch-screen and optical scanner voting machines are outdated, exceeding the recommended 10 years of use. As such, they will be difficult to maintain for future elections. "The District of Columbia's mechanical and digital voting and tabulation system... is in need of replacement," says the report. "The BOE's voting systems are over a decade old and are reaching the end of their operational life." In the report, which was supposed to have been published in July but was delayed by three months, the board says that a large number of the city's voting machines are refurbished units purchased "at a steep discount" in 2009. Given that they were in use before being purchased by D.C., the report says that the machines are older than what a federal election assistance commission recommends for use by local jurisdictions.

District of Columbia: Elections officials ‘cannot guarantee’ a smooth Nov. 4 general election | The Washington Post

Top D.C. election officials said Thursday they have fixed problems with computer switches and servers that caused a four-hour delay in reporting results of the city’s April 1 primary. But in sometimes contentious testimony before a D.C. Council committee , the city’s elections chief said he cannot ensure a smooth night on Nov. 4. “While we have resolved the technical issues . . . I cannot guarantee” there won’t be “more glitches,” said Clifford D. Tatum, executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections. Tatum also refused to make any promises about what time the vote tallying would be finished after the close of polls in the city’s general election. “We will plan for every reasonable contingency,” Tatum said, “but we cannot make any guarantees to when the election night process will be complete.” Tatum said that on Nov. 4 the board would have 45 “roving technicians” to deal with any issues that arise at polling places.

District of Columbia: D.C.’s statehood movement gets an inch, takes a proverbial mile on Capitol Hill | The Washington Post

Along the walk underground from the Capitol to the Dirksen Senate Building, you traverse a long, soulless hallway with a mini train track. As the path curves around, a flag of each state hangs with a corresponding circular crest. Each state’s flag hangs in the order of its admission to the United States. Ten feet separate the flags from one another along the corridor where staffers and lawmakers shuffle between buildings. Imagine a proletariat’s version of the Kennedy Center’s Hall of States. It was in the Dirksen building that Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) held a hearing to discuss a bill granting D.C. statehood. A small step, yes, but an important one in the grind against disenfranchisement. It wasn’t much, but those who spoke for the city did so with aplomb. The case against statehood has never looked so ridiculous. The basic underpinnings of the cause to keep D.C. from statehood are rooted in nothing but privilege and tradition, not logic. And ranking member Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) proved exactly that with his cavalier attitude toward the proceedings, snarky dismissal of the city’s chances of making it through the system, and early departure from the hearing. His approach screamed: “I don’t care because I don’t have to.”

District of Columbia: Congress takes up bill to make D.C. the 51st state | The Washington Post

D.C. residents and city lawmakers packed a Senate hearing Monday for their first chance in two decades to make the case that the nation’s capital should be the 51st state. They came prepared with statistics: $4 billion in federal income taxes are paid annually by city residents. They came with constitutional theories: D.C. residents are unfairly “subjugated” without a voting member of Congress. And they came with stacks of testimony often built around one word to describe the District’s condition. When it comes to full democracy, the rights of D.C. residents are “denied,” said Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D). From the dais, however, there wasn’t much interest. Only two senators attended the first hearing on D.C. statehood in almost 21 years. Those two were Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who introduced the bill, and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who called the whole exercise a waste of time. Coburn then promptly left after little more than a half hour. Carper’s exact reasoning for calling the unusual hearing — and on a day that many members of his committee remained in their districts — remained unclear.

District of Columbia: D.C. statehood bill unlikely to advance beyond Senate panel’s hearing | The Washington Post

For the first time in two decades, Congress will hold a hearing on whether to allow the District to become a state. And that is where the exercise will end. In a bill that will come before a U.S. Senate committee Monday, the District would become “New Columbia,” the 51st state. The District’s mayor would become a governor and the D.C. Council a state legislature. For the first time since its founding more than two centuries ago, District residents would also be free to elect voting members to Congress. By all accounts, the measure still has no chance on Capitol Hill. Making a full-fledged state out of the nation’s capital, where 76 percent of voters are registered Democrats, would hand the party two seats in the Senate and one in the House, a prospect that Republicans unapologetically oppose. Even a majority of Senate Democrats have remained cool to the idea, with some in swing states fearing it could be viewed back home as a partisan power grab.

District of Columbia: Obama on D.C. statehood: ‘I’m for it’ | The Washington Post

With fewer than a dozen words Monday, President Barack Obama made his most definitive statement to date in favor of District statehood, delighting both loyal supporters and longtime advocates who have questioned his commitment to D.C. voting rights. During a town hall-style event at a public school in Northwest Washington, Obama was asked about his opinion on statehood — something that has been the ultimate but elusive goal of voting-rights activists for four decades. “I’m in D.C., so I’m for it,” Obama said to laughter and applause, according to a White House transcript. “Folks in D.C. pay taxes like everybody else,” he continued. “They contribute to the overall well-being of the country like everybody else. They should be represented like everybody else. And it’s not as if Washington, D.C., is not big enough compared to other states. There has been a long movement to get D.C. statehood and I’ve been for it for quite some time. The politics of it end up being difficult to get it through Congress, but I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do.”

District of Columbia: The Little-Known Election That’s About to Cost the District $300,000 | Washington City Paper

Are you pumped for election day this Tuesday? LL’s not talking about the mayoral primary—that was in April. Or the general election, which is still four months from now. Instead, District voters will go to the polls next week to cast ballots for a special election for Ward 8’s seat on the State Board of Education. A special election to fill a position on the toothless State Board of Education isn’t anyone’s idea of a hot race. But even if District residents aren’t paying attention to it, they are paying for it. Holding the election will cost roughly $300,000, according to D.C. Board of Elections spokeswoman Tamara Watkins. That might seem steep, but according to a draft budget prepared by the DCBOE, even running a small election costs a lot of money. Printing fees are expected to cost around $38,500, while voting systems cost $37,000. $43,730 will go to payments to poll staff, including $28,200 just for election day work.

District of Columbia: Appeals Court Overturns Attorney General Election Delay | Washington City Paper

The District will have its first attorney general election in 2014... or at least right after 2014. That's the ruling from the D.C. Court of Appeals this afternoon, which upheld attorney general candidate Paul Zukerberg's lawsuit against the D.C. Board of Elections in an attempt to hold the vote this year. Even though the D.C. Council voted to move the election to 2018 last year on the grounds that the bill establishing the election only required the first election to take place "after Jan. 1, 2014," the appeals court ruled that the language meant instead that the election should take place in 2014, not any time afterwards. “We conclude that a far more natural reading of ‘shall be after January 1, 2014’ is that an election for the District’s Attorney General must be held in 2014," the order reads.

District of Columbia: Fixing election night delays could cost millions | WTOP

Potential remedies for election night delays in D.C. might cost millions of dollars, according to elections leaders who spoke at a public hearing Tuesday. Most recently, there was an hours-long delay in tallying votes after polls closed in the April 1 Democratic primary in D.C. The public and the media waited well into the night to learn that D.C. council member Muriel Bowser had defeated Mayor Vince Gray. Earlier this month, D.C. elections officials said some problems with electronic voting machines may have led to the delay in reporting results.

District of Columbia: Elections officials change story on lags in April 1 primary tally, say big upgrade is needed | The Washington Post

D.C. elections officials offered an entirely new explanation Tuesday for the major vote-counting delays that plagued the city’s April 1 Democratic primary: The issue was not five mishandled electronic voting machines, but a broad computer network failure. The network failure was a mystery to elections officials as it unfolded, said Clifford D. Tatum, executive director of the Board of Elections. But its effect was abundantly clear to all involved on election night, when vote-counting — including ballots the city had accumulated during weeks of early voting — did not begin until almost 10.  Deborah Nichols, chairwoman of the elections board, said that at least $2 million in new electronic voting machines and server upgrades — and perhaps another $2 million in computers and other office improvements — would be needed to ensure timely reporting of results in future citywide elections.

District of Columbia: Minority parties see power grab for D.C. vote | Washington Times

The District’s Republican Party says it will sue any sitting Democrat on the D.C. Council who opts to run as an independent for one of two at-large seats reserved for minority political parties, promising the latest spirited defense of the set-aside positions that have long been a source of discord among city politicians. “The law was set up for third-party candidates, for nonmajority candidates. It wasn’t set up so Democrats could play games with their identification,” said D.C. GOP Chairman Ron Phillips, pointing to the Republican and Statehood Party candidates who have held the seats in the past. The threat was made after two Democrats — council members Tommy Wells and Yvette M. Alexander — last week openly discussed switching to independent status to pursue the at-large seat being vacated by Republican turned independent David A. Catania in his bid for mayor. Another five independent candidates, all of whom were previously registered as Democrats, also have expressed interest in the seat.

District of Columbia: It’s Disenfranchisement When Independents Can’t Vote in Primaries | The Daily Beast

District of Columbia voters went to the polls Tuesday, a few of them anyway, to vote in mayoral and city council primary elections. Unfortunately, although I am a Washington resident, I was not one of them. My non-participation wasn’t due to a lack of interest but because I am an Independent voter. The DC Board of Elections officially lists my party affiliation as “No Party.” It’s a non-affiliation I claim proudly but it comes with a price. Like many millions of other unaffiliated voters around the country I am prevented from exercising the right to vote in partisan primary elections. The outcome of Tuesday’s election will have a significant impact on the future direction of the city and I would have liked to weigh in. Current Mayor Vincent Gray is facing probable indictment on corruption charges—five people who were connected with his 2010 campaign have already pleaded guilty to felonies related to that campaign.

District of Columbia: Problems Plague Tallying Of Results On Night Of D.C. Primary | WAMU

A number of technical glitches delayed the posting of full and accurate results of the D.C. primary on Tuesday, leaving voters frustrated and campaign workers unsure of where their candidates stood in relation to the competition. The polls closed at 8 p.m., but it wasn't until almost 2 a.m. the next morning that full results for the primary were posted on the website of the D.C. Board of Elections. In between, reports provided to media on-site and those posted on the website showed significant discrepancies, while other reports listing results only included paper ballots, not electronic ones. Election officials also reported problems with electronic voting machines at five polling places, though they did not specify what the problems were or where they occurred until after most precincts had reported their results. The problems started at 10 p.m., when the results of early voting were posted. A printed report provided at the board showed just over 10,000 early votes cast, while the same report posted on the board's website put the number at 9,000. Election officials were unable to explain the discrepancy at the time, nor were they able to say why the numbers were less than the 14,000 early votes announced Monday.

District of Columbia: Elections board acknowledges error on Spanish-language electronic ballots | Washington Post

When Edgardo Guerrero went to cast his vote Monday, at One Judiciary Square during the first day of early balloting, the electronic machine he was using presented him with a puzzling message. The 47-year-old Bloomingdale resident had opted for a Spanish-language ballot, and as he prepared to finalize his choices, he was informed, “¡Boleta incompleta! No ha seleccionado opción alguna en ninguna contienda.” Translation: “Ballot incomplete: You haven’t selected an option in any of the contests.” Problem was, Guerrero had made choices in most of the races on the ballot, though he did leave at least one office blank. He reviewed his ballot, tried submitting his choices again, and was given the same message. After inquiring with poll workers, he said, he submitted his ballot. But Guerrero remained wary that his vote had been properly counted, and he asked to have his electronic vote cancelled and to be given a paper ballot. Elections officials on the scene, he said, told him that would not be possible.

District of Columbia: Could the U.N. Help D.C. Win a Vote in Congress? | Roll Call

Raising the profile of the District’s struggle to win voting rights in Congress to the international level could create some interesting geopolitical dynamics. Imagine Chinese President Xi Jinping denouncing D.C.’s disenfranchisement in Congress as a human rights violation. Picture Russian President Vladimir Putin lecturing the White House for denying voting representation to citizens in the nation’s capital. “I don’t want to encourage anybody to poke a stick in our eye in the United States, but the reality is, I think we have some vulnerability on that and there are groups that are eager to find some chink in the United States’ armor,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., during a recent symposium on congressional representation for D.C. residents hosted by the William & Mary Election Law Program. Davis believes that launching an international dialogue on the issue could be helpful in pressing it forward politically. As one of the staunchest allies the District has ever had in Congress, Davis repeatedly defended the city during his 14 years in Congress and pushed legislation to give the District a vote in the House.

District of Columbia: Attorney General Election Excluded From D.C. Primary Ballot | Roll Call

The District’s April primary ballot will not include the city’s first attorney general election, in accordance with a Superior Court ruling issued Friday. Washingtonians in 2010 approved a charter amendment to make attorney general an elected, rather than appointed, position in 2014, but the D.C. Council has since attempted to cancel, then delay, such a vote. Superior Court Judge Laura A. Cordero on Friday afternoon denied a motion for injunction, after granting an emergency hearing for attorney general hopeful Paul Zukerberg on Thursday, just two days before the primary ballots headed to the printer.

District of Columbia: DC to Consider Voting Rights Bill for Non-Citizens | Governing

The City Council in Washington, D.C., will consider a bill to grant voting rights to legal immigrants who are not citizens. Councilman David Grosso introduced the measure Dec. 3 along with three other councilmembers, Jim Graham, Muriel Bowser and Tommy Wells. It would pertain to several local elections, including those for the D.C. Board of Education, advisory neighborhood commissions, the city's attorney general, the city council, the mayor and any city initiatives or referendums. “Pot holes, community centers, playgrounds, minimum wage, taxes, supercans, snow removal, alley closings, alcohol license moratoriums, red light cameras…these are all important issues that voters in the District of Columbia entrust their leaders with,” Grosso wrote in a blog post. “Not all of our residents have say in choosing the individuals who make these decisions. In my opinion, that is unjust.”

District of Columbia: Bill Would Give D.C. Residents Who Aren’t U.S. Citizens Voting Rights | DCist

A bill was introduced to the Council today that would allow people who are D.C. residents but not U.S. citizens local voting rights. The Local Resident Voting Rights Act of 2013 was introduced by Councilmembers Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 8), Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), David Grosso (I-At Large) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6). The bill would amend the District of Columbia Election Code to allow non-citizens over the age of 18 who have lived in D.C. for at least 30 days and are legal permanent U.S. residents to vote in local elections. Translation: D.C. residents with a green card would be able to vote in municipal elections. "Pot holes, community centers, playgrounds, minimum wage, taxes, supercans, snow removal, alley closings, alcohol license moratoriums, red light cameras - these are all important issues that voters in the District of Columbia entrust their leaders with," Grosso said in a statement. "And unfortunately, not all of our residents have say in choosing the individuals who make these decisions. In my opinion, that is unjust."

District of Columbia: Judge Denies Lawsuit to Hold DC Attorney General Election in 2014 | Washingtonian

A federal judge denied lawyer Paul Zukerberg's lawsuit against a DC Council bill to delay the election of the District's attorney general until at least 2018, dealing a severe blow to Zukerberg's campaign to be the first person voted into that position. Judge James E. Boasberg wrote in his opinion that while Zukerberg raised several valid points about the uncertainty about the scheduling of an attorney general election, the case did not belong in his courtroom because the delay bill is not settled law. "While Zukerberg raises an interesting challenge, the Court has no power to rule on that question today, as none of his claims is ripe for review," Boasberg wrote.

District of Columbia: The Maryland solution to D.C. voting | Baltimore Sun

This month, Kimberly Perry, the new head of D.C. Vote, acknowledged the fatigue of past efforts to gain federal voting rights for the residents of Washington, D.C., and told The Washington Post, "there's always been the discussion of retrocession [to Maryland] as a possible solution." The possibility of "retrocession" has not gotten much attention, but a carefully crafted bill that permits a "legalistic" and "technical" return of the District to the state from which it was carved, for federal voting purposes alone, is made possible by a recent and largely overlooked Supreme Court case. Legislation can now be passed and approved in Maryland, D.C. and Congress to establish voting rights equality for D.C. residents, technically through the state of Maryland, but as an independent congressional district for only D.C. residents. Here's how: After the 2010 Census, West Virginia's legislature decided against a redistricting plan that would have created three districts that were almost precisely equal in population (they varied by only one person) and instead selected a new map that included larger population variations but did a better job of keeping communities unified. A federal court in Charleston, W.Va., had rejected the plan because of the population variance, but on September 26, 2012, in Tennant v. Jefferson County Commission, the Supreme Court approved it, contravening a perceived absolutist approach to the one-person, one-vote doctrine from the 1963 case of Wesberry v. Sanders. The Supreme Court instead based its Tennant decision on its 1983 precedent of Karcher v. Daggett, saying the lower court "failed to afford appropriate deference to West Virginia's reasonable exercise of its political judgment."

District of Columbia: Honoring Frederick Douglass With a Demand for Voting Rights | The Nation

Vice President Biden did right by Frederick Douglass. The abolitionist taught that “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Accordingly, when the vice president marked the unveiling of a statue honoring abolitionist Douglass at the US Capitol, he made a demand. And it was the appropriate one. In the last years of his life Douglass was active with a pioneering voting rights group, the District Suffrage Petition Association. He attended the group’s meetings and asked, “What have the people of the District done that they should be excluded from the privileges of the ballot box?” It was that question, and the advocacy associated with it, that Biden recalled at the dedication ceremony, declaring that he and President Obama “support home rule, budget autonomy and the vote for the people of the District of Columbia.”

District of Columbia: Biden calls for DC voting rights during tribute | Businessweek

Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday used a tribute to 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass to renew the call for equal voting rights for people who live in the nation's capital. During a ceremony unveiling a statue of Douglass in the Capitol, Biden hailed Douglass' work advocating equal justice, and noted that Douglass supported complete voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia, where Douglass once lived. Although each of the 50 states was allowed two statues of notable citizens in the Capitol, the District of Columbia was not allowed any statue until a measure passed by Congress last year. Residents chose to honor Douglass, whose home near the Anacostia River is a national historic site. Biden said he and President Barack Obama back Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's nonvoting delegate to Congress, in her effort to bring statehood and full voting rights to the city.